The Day Ollie the Giant Saved Happy Town
By Francis Burger
Cover Illustration by Shon Watkins: shontoon.com
Editing by Kristen House: kristencorrects.com
The Day Ollie the Giant Saved Happy Town
Once upon a time, there was a sleepy little village nestled deep in the heart of an emerald green valley. The folks that lived there called it Happy Town and it was surrounded on all sides by towering snow-capped mountains that looked like giant slices of gingerbread cake topped in white sugar frosting. The people who lived in Happy Town never journeyed very far outside their own valley because they had no desire for bothersome adventures or news from the outside world. They were quite satisfied with their quiet lives, but as we all know, things never stay the same forever.
It was one beautiful spring morning in early April when Happy Town was literally shaken out of its dreamy slumber by an unexpected visitor. Most people were still snug in their beds and fast asleep when, out of nowhere, there came a thunderous “THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!” After every one of those thumps the ground shook underneath them, rattling the walls of their little wooden houses and causing the nic-nacs on their shelves to jump up and down and clank together. Cups and saucers crashed to their floors and the vibration caused all the pictures on their walls to lean at different angles. The people were quite alarmed by this sudden commotion and they sprang from their beds to see what it was that was causing such a racket. A few moments later, the large silver bell in the middle of the town square began to ring out. “BONG, BONG, BONG!” Whenever the town bell sounded, which was hardly ever, everyone knew to come as quickly as possible because something important was happening.
The clickity-clack of many shoes could soon be heard running across the stone sidewalks as people rushed to the town square, many still pulling up their trousers as they went and others still halfway-in and halfway-out of their overcoats while rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. Finally, most everyone arrived and there could be heard a great confusion of chatter since they all seemed to be talking at once. The mayor of Happy Town stepped forward. He was a fine, plump old fellow with a big walrus looking mustache. He climbed to the top of the platform where the silver bell hung and held his hands out to quiet everyone. “My good people” he said in a nervous voice, “It appears as though we have a very unusual visitor to our little town this morning.” He cleared his throat and sounded even more nervous. “I can’t say for certain whether he is friendly or not for I have yet to meet him, but I can assure you all of one thing… he is almost as big as a mountain!”
At hearing this, some of the people started to laugh because the Mayor was well known for his silly pranks. Like the time last month when he dressed his dog up to look like a lion, hoping to scare the little children and make everyone laugh but his dog ended up chasing a herd of frightened goats into the hills and it took the people of the town a whole week to round them up once again. So of course, they were a little bit suspicious of the Mayor.
Someone yelled out. “So tell us Mr. Mayor, where is this so called mountain sized man that you speak of?” There could be heard a few giggles but the mayor remained silent, he only pointed in the direction of the field outside of town. The people turned their heads and what they saw made many of them rub their eyes in disbelief. Some thought that they might still be back in bed dreaming.
Not far outside of town and next to the old dirt road sat a very large rock that the children of the town liked to climb. But unless their eyes were playing tricks on them, sitting on the ground and leaning up against the rock was none other than a giant! As far as they could tell, the giant was asleep because he wasn’t moving in the least. He just sat very still against the rock with his arms folded and his head bowed down on his chest. A few brave souls decided to get a better look. They cautiously moved closer and the rest of the people followed a short distance behind. They could plainly see the giant now. His head was topped in a great thatch of hair that looked to be sun bleached and the color of straw, and he wore a slightly tattered brown shirt and baggy purple trousers that were tucked into big leather boots. The women whispered to themselves and giggled. Even in spite of his rough appearance, the ladies all agreed that, as far as giants go, he was really quite handsome. They moved their way closer but all of a sudden, a dragon fly landed on the giants nose and they could see that nose of his twitching like he was about to sneeze. A second later, he swatted at the dragon fly with one of his big hands but he missed and smacked himself in the face. They all thought this was very funny and tried their best to hold it in but it was no use. They burst forth and laughed harder than they could ever remember and the noise startled the giant awake. He opened his eyes and looked around, then finally spotted the group of little people standing in the road and staring up at him. “Well now!” he said in a booming voice. “What have we here? Little folk, it appears to ol’ Ollie!”
They probably should have been frightened stiff at this point and run for their very lives but for some reason, the giants face looked to be very kind and gentle. One by one they introduced themselves and the mayor nervously welcomed Ollie to their happy little town. After only a short while, they were laughing and joking as though they had always been close friends. It was very exciting for the people to hear of Ollie’s travels and all of the wonderful places he had visited in the world. Ollie told them that the reason he went on such long journeys was because he was searching for news of other giants. He knew there just had to be other big people in the world, like himself, but he was never able to discover where they lived. During his long walks, he would sometimes stop and talk with the animals that came across his path and he always made it a point to ask them if they had ever seen big people like himself, but sadly, they never did.
After hearing Ollie’s story, the town’s people couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Ollie noticed the sad look on their faces. He just smiled and winked at them. “Now don’t you worry about ol’ Ollie,” he said, “I’m certain to find my giant friends one of these days. In the meantime, making small friends is just as important.”
Ollie looked up and noticed for the first time, a big garden on the other side of a wood rail fence that was planted with all sorts of vegetables, but he could tell that none of them looked very healthy. He reached his long arm over and plucked up a single stalk of corn. He brought it up to his face and looked at it closely. It was withered and dry as a bone and this made Ollie frown. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, little ones, but all your vegetables look to be in need of a long drink of water.” They knew this to be true. The mayor explained that nothing seemed to grow very well in their garden because it rarely rained and to make matters worse, they often had to make long trips to the mountain to bring back barrels of water ever since the town well dried up last summer. “Oh, if it would only rain more often!” he heard some of them say with a real sadness in their voice. Ollie stood up from the ground and the heads of the town people tilted way back. It seemed as though Ollie could almost touch the clouds. He stood quiet for a few moments and looked around, then a great big smile came across his face and he let out a hearty laugh that echoed through the valley like rolling thunder. “Take care little ones,” he said, looking down at them, “and don’t you worry, I’ll be back in a few day’s and I promise to fix your happy little town right as rain once again.” With that, he waved goodbye and stomped off through the mountain passes, shaking the ground as he went and whistling a happy tune.
Ollie was right to his word, because after a few days they could feel the ground rumble once again and the silver bell soon began to ring. The people hurriedly gathered at the rock outside of town where
they found Ollie waiting for them with a big smile. Only, Ollie wasn’t alone today. “My little friends,” he said, “I would like you to meet my goat… his name is Buster.” Buster had two large sacks slung over his back and was chewing on something in the way their own goats seemed to do. Buster looked in every way like one of their goats, but with one obvious difference…Buster was as big as a house! Buster was as curious of the little people as they were of him and he bent his head down to take a big sniff. The suction created by his sniff lifted one of the men into the air. He certainly would have ended up somewhere in Busters nose had the others not grabbed his legs and pulled him back down. Ollie laughed and removed the sacks from Busters back. He leaned over and whispered something into Buster’s ear and the goat walked off toward the surrounding green fields where he spent the rest of the afternoon happily munching on the sweet green clover that seemed to cover the entire valley of Happy Town.
Ollie reached into the first bag and pulled out a bunch of carrots that were the size of trees. He then pulled from the bag a couple of apples, a cabbage and a handful of sweet peas that were still in their pods (those pods, by the way, made excellent snow sleds for the children that winter). All the vegetables were from Ollie’s very own garden and were gigantic in size. Ollie smiled, “This should keep you from being hungry until your garden comes back to life.” He then pulled from the other bag a bouquet of beautiful bright flowers that also came from his garden and sat them down by the rock. They immediately filled the air with a sweet and fragrant smell. The town’s people clapped and cheered and one of the pretty young maidens waved for Ollie to bend down close to the ground. When he did, she gave him a kiss on his nose and his face turned bright red with embarrassment and everyone laughed.
“Now you little folks just stand aside now while Ollie does his work,” the giant said to them. “I wouldn’t want any of you to get hurt.” With that, the people sat down near the rock and watched with much attention. Ollie looked toward one of the closest mountains and saw a large, fluffy dark cloud that was floating near its top. He started to suck in deep breathes of air into his lungs and with every breath that he took the cloud came closer and closer. When the cloud was finally floating directly over the top of the vegetable garden, Ollie stopped. He then raised his arms high in the air and clapped his hands together which made a sound like thunder. A few seconds later it started to rain and Ollie tilted his head back and laughed out loud, much like a child would when watching a cat chase its own tail.
The people of the town were amazed. They clapped and shouted “Thank you, Ollie! Thank you!” But Ollie wasn’t finished with his work just yet because there was still the important matter of making sure the town had plenty of drinking water. Ollie then stepped back into a field that was farther away from the town and got down on his hands and knees. He scooped out huge mounds of dirt from the ground with his giant hands and piled the dirt to the sides, making them look like small hills. By the time he had finished, there was an enormous hole in the ground. The people watching just scratched their heads. For the life of them, they couldn’t figure out what Ollie was trying to do.
Ollie then stood and pulled a big tree out of the ground as easy as someone would pull up a carrot. He cleaned off all its branches until it looked like an ordinary stick in his hand. Starting at the hole, Ollie dragged the end of the tree across the ground, which made a deep trench. He dragged the tree near the garden, then close to the town, and continued on toward one of the mountains far away. Once he arrived at the mountain, he connected the trench into a great stream of bubbling water that ran down the side of the mountain. Within a few minutes the people of the town could see a strong gush of water making its way down the trench just as if someone had turned on a spigot. The water shot past them and ended up in the big hole that Ollie had dug. Within a few days, the entire hole was filled with water and it was forever referred to as Happy Town Lake. The people were overjoyed. Thanks to Ollie, they now had a stream of nice, clear mountain water to drink from and plenty of water for their garden.
The people of Happy Town wanted to show their appreciation for what Ollie had done for them and they finally decided to have the town baker make an enormous batch of chocolate chip cookies for Ollie. This became his favorite snack. Whenever Ollie came to visit Happy Town, which he often did, there was always an entire wagon full of cookies waiting for him to enjoy. And so it was that Ollie and the people of Happy Town remained the closest of friends for a long, long time.
This was the story of how one very nice giant saved a small town long ago. If your own town should ever someday get a visit from a giant, like Happy Town did, then it’s probably a good thing to have lots and lots of chocolate chip cookies on hand. You might also want to tell your mother to replace your glass cups and plates with plastic ones because, as we all know, the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, of a giants heavy footsteps can really do a lot of damage to your dishes!
THE END
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